On June 19, hundreds of attendees from around the world representing a variety of industries and communities will gather in Singapore to attend the second public meeting of the year held by ICANN, the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers, the organization that administers the Internet’s domain name system.

Anticipation is high. ICANN could vote to approve its proposed program to introduce an unlimited number of new generic top-level domain names (such as .com or .org) to the Internet. People would be able to apply, establish and operate any new gTLD (such as .green or .sports).

The introduction of new top-level domains could offer potential new business and online opportunities to organizations, in that brand owners will be able to apply for .brand name, which could enhance their control over their online presence.

Yet despite ICANN’s elaborate plans, evidence of demand for new gTLDs is scant and consumer reactions to gTLDs that have been introduced over the past ten years have been weak, with low levels of user adoption. More importantly, companies now must be prepared for the significant costs that this program will bring to their business.

As we have seen with recent online security breaches on corporations’ internal systems, the Internet has many types of users - both legitimate and illegitimate. There is no shortage of bad actors furthering malicious activity on the Internet. And in the current system of nearly 300 top-level domain names, brand owners must monitor, register, and enforce their trademarks across a wide spectrum of online real estate. The introduction of large numbers of new gTLDs will only add to these complexities and costs, raising additional security challenges for organizations seeking to secure their online presence, maintain the integrity of their brands, and enhance their consumers’ online experience.

Cybersquatting, for example, remains a pervasive problem for many types of organizations and business owners, both large and small alike.

Cybersquatters register and traffic in Internet domain names with the bad-faith intent to profit from the equity that has been developed in a well-known trademark.

For example, have you ever accidentally misspelled a Web address? Cybersquatters count on mistakes like this so they can divert traffic from the user’s intended destination to their own site. Once misled, users are harmed in a variety of ways, including being deceived into purchasing dangerous counterfeit products or downloading viruses that steal their personal identifying information or infect their computers. As a result of this harmful practice, businesses lose revenue, brand equity is devalued, and consumers are put at risk.

Last year, the United Nations’ World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) saw a 28 percent increase in cybersquatting cases. Keep in mind that this percentage does not include the number of incidents that go unreported, which are estimated to dwarf the number of cases that are adjudicated by WIPO.

This, among other concerns, was raised not only by intellectual property organizations such as the International Trademark Association, but also by ICANN’s own Government Advisory Committee, which consists of national governments, distinct economies, and multinational governmental organizations. And at a U.S. House of Representatives hearing last May, members of the Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, Competition and the Internet of the Committee on the Judiciary urged ICANN to reassess its launch strategy and deadline.

If ICANN approves and launches its new gTLDs program next week, businesses will have to spend additional resources on defensive domain name registrations associated with their brand names. They will have to incur costs associated with trademark policing and enforcement in efforts to protect their reputation and the safety of their consumers on the Internet.

For now, businesses must prepare for the possible changes to the Internet. Companies must work with their legal counsel, marketing and information technology departments and consultants to develop a comprehensive strategy to defend and promote their trademarks in this evolving online environment.

Failure to do so will devalue their brands and put at risk the trust, goodwill, and secure relationships with their consumers that these businesses have worked so hard to achieve.